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Drones will fly into the path of the eclipse to study weather
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Popular Science Aug 17, 2017
Drones will fly into the path of the eclipse to study weather
As the sky goes dark, robots will conduct atmospheric science.
A hex drone and a DJI Phantom fly in the sunset
On Monday, hex drones will fly into the sky during the eclipse to
measure the change in weather from the sudden darkness and the sudden
cold.
Jamey Jacob
When
the sun disappears behind the moon on Monday, scientists will be ready.
The astrophysics of the eclipse are known, so for space watchers it
will be a time to relax and partake
in the strange beauty of day gone suddenly dark. For the atmospheric
scientist however, the eclipse provides a shining opportunity to
directly study how the sun influences weather patterns by heating the
atmosphere. To that end, a team of researchers from Oklahoma State
University and the University of Nebraska is going to spend Monday
tracking changes in the atmosphere in the path of the eclipse. And to
get just how the eclipse changes the weather in the low sky, the team
will fly drones during the totality.
This flight is part of the broader “Collaboration Leading
Operational Unmanned Development for Meteorology and Atmospheric
Physics” (CLOUD MAP) project, where four universities are trying to
figure out how to use drones to better study weather. Drones are ideal
because they can fly above towers and below where manned aircraft and
balloons operate. It’s this lower atmospheric boundary layer that the
drones are built to study.
“There’s an impact during what we call the diurnal cycle, the night-day boundary, the sun comes out, starts heating up the ground, and that’s where a lot of our unstable weather phenomena starts to form,” says Jamey Jacob, a professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Oklahoma State University. “The sun comes out, starts to heat the ground up, moist bubbles of air detach from the air as they get hot and go up and form thunderstorms, tornadoes, all kinds of things."
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“There’s an impact during what we call the diurnal cycle, the night-day boundary, the sun comes out, starts heating up the ground, and that’s where a lot of our unstable weather phenomena starts to form,” says Jamey Jacob, a professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Oklahoma State University. “The sun comes out, starts to heat the ground up, moist bubbles of air detach from the air as they get hot and go up and form thunderstorms, tornadoes, all kinds of things."
Hex drone flown by Oklahoma State University
This drone is measuring the wind, like it will do during the eclipse.
Jamey Jacob
Those
changes normally happen with the day-night cycle. The eclipse offers a
rare moment to observe the change against the backdrop of the day, to
see how a sudden absence of that direct, solar heat changes the air and
in turn changes the weather. For the measurements, the drones are
equipped with sensors to collect temperature, humidity, and pressure
readings, as well as special ultrasonic sensors, designed to measure the
wind.
“It may sound relatively simple but essentially you take away that radiation, that heat in a certain area,” says Jacob, “it starts to cool down, as it cools down you essentially get a giant sucking effect from the hot air around and into this colder region.”
By the end of Monday, the drones should know if the eclipse sucks, though it will take more time to thoroughly analyze all the data collected. To match the drone flights to the sequence of the eclipse, they are equipped with light sensors, and some drones will have visual light and infrared cameras to see if they can stop any interesting phenomena. And the drones will fly, not just during the totality of the eclipse, but throughout the day, comparing readings from the drones to stations on the ground to balloons sent into the sky, building a complete picture of what a little solar darkness means for the weather that follows.
“Nothing,” says Jacob, “could be cooler or geekier.”
“It may sound relatively simple but essentially you take away that radiation, that heat in a certain area,” says Jacob, “it starts to cool down, as it cools down you essentially get a giant sucking effect from the hot air around and into this colder region.”
By the end of Monday, the drones should know if the eclipse sucks, though it will take more time to thoroughly analyze all the data collected. To match the drone flights to the sequence of the eclipse, they are equipped with light sensors, and some drones will have visual light and infrared cameras to see if they can stop any interesting phenomena. And the drones will fly, not just during the totality of the eclipse, but throughout the day, comparing readings from the drones to stations on the ground to balloons sent into the sky, building a complete picture of what a little solar darkness means for the weather that follows.
“Nothing,” says Jacob, “could be cooler or geekier.”
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